The life of St Gordius of Caesarea
When the emperor Licinius moved to purge the army of Christians, Gordius left his post and withdrew into the wilderness, giving himself to prayer and to a hard, plain life apart from the city.
Years later, when Caesarea kept a pagan festival with games in the theater, Gordius came down from his solitude and stood before the crowd to declare that he was a Christian. Brought before the governor, he named his family and his former rank, and would not be moved by threats of torture or death, saying only that it would be his loss to die but once for Christ's sake rather than many times over. He was condemned and beheaded in the year 320. Decades afterward, Basil the Great preached in his honor at his shrine in Caesarea, telling his hearers that some among them had themselves witnessed the martyr's death.
